“Follow the Money” Documenting the Right's Well-Heeled Assault on the United Methodist Church

Six months ago, we reviewed in these pages an unsettling book titled United Methodism @ Risk: A Wake Up Call by Leon Howell (see Zion’s Herald, July/August 2003). The book exposes an orchestrated attack by the American political and religious right on The United Methodist Church (UMC) and other mainline Protestant denominations that have been sufficiently vigorous, socially involved and politically effective to garner its wrath (Howell, 2003).
In response to the ensuing criticism of the book and our review, we organized a group of researchers to check the facts and found the volume to be well documented and reliable. In the process, we also reviewed hundreds of documents published by the key organization involved in the assault on the church, namely, the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD). Our findings as outlined below are very disturbing.
...The IRD’s stated goals, which consistently are at odds with the historic social witness of the mainline churches, include increasing military spending, opposing environmental protection efforts and eliminating social welfare programs (Institute on Religion and Democracy, 2001a). In this respect, it can be said that the IRD and its wealthy patrons are intent on derailing if not outright controlling the UMC’s social witness. If that sounds implausible, one need only consider how right-wing groups during the last decade have done that and more in their take-over of the Southern Baptist Convention.
...The IRD has pressed the Bush administration to take a harder line on North Korea (Goodenough, 2003) and vigorously supported Republican tax cuts for the rich (Tooley, 2001b, c). Mr. Tooley’s direct board of directors supervisor, David Stanley, is the chairman of a radical anti-tax group (Clark, 1999) that advocates the slashing of government services for the poor and disabled and huge tax cuts for the wealthy (Neas, 2003). The IRD opposes even limited environmental protection efforts and has collaborated with other like-minded folks to try to roll back protections now in place (Interfaith Coalition for Environmental Stewardship, 2003; Public Eye, 2003; Sider & Ball, 2002; Tooley, 2002). The IRD, particularly Ms. Knippers, has been vocal in opposition to any form of hate crime legislation (Jones, 2000). It has expressed opposition to a land mines treaty (Institute on Religion and Democracy, 2001b) and to women even having knowledge about reproductive choices (Institute on Religion and Democracy, 2001c).